Translated material
The Russian representative to the ECHR explained why Milonov was not prosecuted for a T-shirt with a banned slogan
Answering questions from the ECtHR about the punishment of the activist for mentioning the slogan "Orthodoxy or death", the representative of Russia explained that Milonov was not prosecuted for the photo with this slogan due to the lack of clarity of the photo and the lack of criminal intent.
In November 2018, it became known that Mikhail Galperin, the representative of Russia at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), asked to reject the complaint of the Cheboksary activist Alena Blinova, who was fined for mentioning the banned slogan "Orthodoxy or death."
Blinova (according to her passport - Elena Romanova) on April 13, 2017 was fined 1 thousand rubles under Art. 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses by the Leninsky District Court of Cheboksary for spreading the banned slogan "Orthodoxy or death." The reason for this decision was that the activist made a repost of the opinion of the deputy Vitaly Milonov on the persecution of the coordinator of Open Russia in Chuvashia Dmitry Semenov for spreading this slogan (including in the form photographs of Milonov himself in a T-shirt with a prohibited inscription). Due to liability under Art. On 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, the administration of Cheboksary refused her approval for a mass event. The activist complained to the ECHR, pointing out the violation by the Russian side of Art. 10 (freedom of expression) and Art. 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The commissioner asked the Strasbourg court to recognize Blinova’s complaint as unfounded and to reject it, since bringing the activist to administrative responsibility was “ connected with her violation of the ban established by federal law on the distribution and storage of materials of an extremist nature in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morality, for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others ." In his opinion, the applicant's rights guaranteed by Art. 10 of the Convention were not violated in the case.
He also answered the question of the ECtHR about why the deputy Vitaly Milonov himself, who wore a T-shirt with a banned slogan, was not held accountable for this. Galperin explained that in 2014 the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg conducted an investigation in connection with the placement of a photo of Milonov in this T-shirt on the Internet. " During the examination of the photograph, it was established that it depicts Milonov with an object that looks like a firearm in his hands, and a readable inscription on the T-shirt he is wearing" ... lava! part of a possible extremist slogan, as well as the absence of Milonov's intent to incite hatred or enmity ... established during the check, the grounds for conducting a prosecutor's check and taking measures of a prosecutor's response were not established, "said the commissioner .
Note that we consider the ban on the slogan "Orthodoxy or death" to be unlawful. This slogan is popular among the aggressive part of representatives of some Orthodox organizations (for example, the Union of Orthodox banner-bearers), however, historically it belongs to one of the Athos monasteries and is interpreted not as a wish for death to non-Orthodox, but as a contrast between Orthodoxy and spiritual death: "either we will be Orthodox, or we will die spiritually ". It is all the more absurd to punish any mention of any prohibited material, especially a slogan.
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